


Wolf Within

by Shelved Projects (CarolAndNella)



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:30:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3319157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarolAndNella/pseuds/Shelved%20Projects
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Description:</b> An enrapturing new take on a timeless classic, rich with drama and bursting with action! We follow the way of tribe customs, while exploring new possibilities and falling in love, all over again, even as tensions from rivals rise.<br/>An Edward/Jacob pair off, but focuses greatly on building a new story in an alternate universe. The what could haves and what should haves, along with fresh interpretations and renditions.</p><p><b>Notes:</b> Notices inside. May feature artwork in the future.</p><p><b>Rating:</b> Rated Teen and Up due to Homosexual romance, some violence, (no gore,) and may contain mild to coarse language. Will try to focus on story and avoid drama/violence/gore/sexual themes where possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wolf Within

_Red light crept through the tangled branches, the scent of nightfall rising up from the musty earth. Shadows began to swallow the world while stars pricked the sky. The sun crawled down toward an ocean of black, passing by a claw scratch of moon. Broken light dappled the ground, spilling through the canopy as shapes drifted through them. Creatures moved in the dusk, eyes glittering back in the dark as they padded through the forest._

* * *

**_* ~ * ~* ~ * ~ *_ **

_Shadows dance in your eyes_  
_Moonlight shatters across your back_

_Blood silvery with lies_  
_Your life with love I lack_

_I touch your lips_  
_I taste your breath_  
_I lie my head upon your chest  
_

_It hurts to need you  
_ _It's wrong to want you_

_With inky quill scratches  
And ruby dust glittering_

_I light the candles with old matches  
The glow weak and flickering_

**_* ~ * ~* ~ * ~ *_ **

* * *

**~ * Notice * ~**

Heavily Under Construction!

**Story**

Jacob padded through the forest, legs striding across the ground. Ducking his head and squeezing out from underneath a low branch, Jacob peered out over the slope. Trees grew close together, choking the undergrowth. Jacob bent his neck, looking up and squinting through the canopy. Sun set was long gone, and the night birds were sounding off their calls. Dropping his gaze back down to his paws, he trotted onward, pads crunching on broken twigs and dried leaves. Appearing to be a chocolate and ochre wolf with a hemp cord necklace around his neck, from which dangled a square wooden talisman, Jacob was one of the four chosen tribe totems. A tribe totem was usually a youth who was chosen by the tribe elder, to take on the form of an animal from the tribes' totem pole.

Jacob had been the wolf totem for about five months, but this was his first mission. He had been training for about three months, but he still felt lost when he took this shape, still trying to settle into his new found abilities.  
The breeze tangled through the forest, tugging on their leaves and ruffling his pelt. Thirst crawled up Jacob's throat. He hadn't had a proper dinner earlier that day. He wished he had stayed behind long enough to have something to drink.

A snap sounded off several dozen steps behind Jacob. Skidding to a stop half way down the slope, Jacob craned his head around, swiveling his ears back. The forest whispered to him, but there were no other signs of life. All the rodents were asleep, and the ground fowl were usually closer to the river. Jacob gazed up for several heartbeats longer, before swinging back around and carrying onward, picking up the pace.  
His mission was important, but simple. Remain in the woods for the remainder of the year until next Spring thaw. It was a customary mission, to prove a totem bearer's resilience against the wild and unity with nature. The other three totems were an Elk, a Bear and a Raven, but Jacob hadn't met either of them yet. They weren't the only tribe with a totem regimen, nor were they the only form of magic. The possibilities for any type of magic seemed to exist in some form, in many different ways, and this was only one that was special to his particular tribe.

Jacob knew little of the magical world, but he was aware that in some ways, some parts of it existed. He just didn't see much of it yet. Maybe deep down, every one has some sense that magic is real, living in their culture and being born through their traditions, and dying with their history. It just took a special pair of eyes to see it.

Jacob had turned 19 two months earlier, and mucky snow still lay in clumps through out the forest. The branches were still saggy and bare, and winter seemed reluctant to release it's claws on the West coast. Jacob had been dispatched at dawn, and had been wandering for some time since then. He was thoroughly lost, but he felt confident that he would know the forest like the back of his hand by the time the mission was over. The elders had warned him that he might come across many other creatures during his mission and he felt ready for it.

Jacob had always assumed that werewolves were a thing. Like being mad all the time and howling at the full moon. But at least for this particular part of the West, that wasn't all true. There were talented shamans and tribe folk who could imitate the form of wolves, and there had been many bearers before Jacob to take the form of a wolf. They all contributed to some parts of the myth, which help sculpt the legend to what it was today. Frankly, Jacob hadn't thought much about wolves until he was chosen. Romanticized wild dogs, right?  
But that changed when Jacob was chosen to be the next bearer for the wolf totem. Jacob wasn't exactly your researching kind of guy, but he really wanted to get into the lore. Learn what his new duty meant for him. He had learned a lot, but even then, it still seemed... alien, walking alone in the dark, the breeze tugging his pelt and mulch crunching beneath his pads.

Jacob swerved between several birch trees, tripping on a sprawling root. Muttering under his breath, he adjusted his paws, then shook out his pelt. He extended a leg to carry on, but another snap cracked behind him, closer this time. He whirled around, fluffing up his pelt.  
"I know you're there." Jacob declared, scanning the woods. The slope was many yards back, and Jacob was making his way to a clump of brambles some dozen feet onward. The light had already been swallowed by nightfall, and the stars were no help. Scrappy clouds congested most of the sky.

No one answered Jacob. He strained his ears to pick up any sounds, and sniffed noisily at the air to try and catch a scent, but could detect nothing. Jacob waited for several heart beats longer, but sensed nothing. He swung around and padded forward, trying to dispel the squirm of unease in his belly. While he tried to fight it, the unnerving sensation that he was being not only watched, but _followed_ was swarming all over through his fur, making the ruff around his shoulders stand on end. He wasn't a coward! He was just freaking out. A lot had happened in the last few weeks. Leaving his friends and family to take on this mission, and he couldn't see them for four whole seasons...

He just needed time to adjust.

**_* ~ * ~* ~ * ~ *_ **

It was late when Jacob's body began to ache, and tiredness weighed down on his shoulders. He could barely see where he was putting his paws, and more night sounds had rustled and tweeted in the woods. Jacob finally decided to slow to a stop near an outcropping of rocks, nestled beneath a knotted clump of sycamore. Jacob snuffled through the ground, making sure there were no other animal smells.  
His sense of smell was crazy. A blast of different scents, telling him ridiculous amounts of information. What it was from, when it had been there, how old it was... Jacob was still trying to adjust to the newly advanced sense, but was smart enough to distinguish a random smell from a territory marker.

Jacob had passed several territory markers through out the day. Back up at the slope, he had noticed a coyote marker, while at the beginning of his journey, during dawn, he had scented a fox maker. He hand't scented any other wolves yet, which he was grateful for. He had no idea how interactions with a wolf would be like, and what exactly what real wolves were up too during March.  
The rocks were old, and had the faint scent of rodent around it, but overall the area seemed abandoned. Jacob shook out his pelt, glancing around once more. The sensation of being followed had long since passed, but the memory still sent chills up and down Jacob's back. He swallowed, twisted around and investigated the rocks. It wasn't considerably cold out, but the rocks felt frozen under paw. He nosed around underneath an out cropping, catching a whiff of coyote. It was an old scent. He spotted a den, dug out under one of the larger boulders.

Scrabbling at the earth, Jacob expanded the den, squeezing inside. It was cramped and unusual, but he was out from the wind and mist, and it just seemed better to be out of eye sight. His lids felt suddenly heavy as he curled up, hunkering down onto his haunches and folding his forelimbs under his chest He settled his head onto his paws, letting his eyes close.

Sleep was fitful and poor. Snatches of slumber caught between sudden jolts, all the while fighting off the chill with a raggedy coat. Jacob sank into a cloud of homesickness, his memories littered with his friends and family. Fear gnawed at his back, usually extinguished by frustration, which he mistook for courage. He tried to keep his misgivings at bay, trying to hope for the best. This was supposed to be _exciting._ He had been chosen to bear the wolf totem! This was his mission to prove that he was worthy to represent the wolf of the tribe, and to discover ancient secrets about the area.  
But a whole year on his own? Alone in the woods, in the wild, with no humans? With out his friends and family?

Jacob studied his paws through his lashes, scratching lines in the sandy earth. His stomach rumbled with hunger, and thirst still clawed his throat. Jacob grumbled, twisting around onto his back. When he finally did sleep for a substantial amount of time, his dreams were dismal and abstract.

It was his choosing ceremony. Jack o Lanterns had been decorating the neighborhood, and the town kids had been dressed as monsters and were high on sugar. His elder had taken him back to the summer camp to talk with him. He remembered running his thumbs over a wooden talisman, gripping a long cord of bound hemp. He remembered wearing it for days, weeks even. His dreams, which he normally hadn't paid much attention too, had since then been dominated by wolves. Walking with them, following them as the sun rose behind them, settling down in the tall grass while rain drummed the ground, answering a chorus of howls in a winter storm...  
He remembered when his elder had explained the totems to him. The magical secrets that accompanied totem poles, and what that meant for his talisman. He remembered the first time he changed into a wolf, and the first weeks of his training. He remembered when his elder sat him down and told him about the mission he had to complete. He remembered trying to keep his hands from trembling as he reassured his elder that he could handle it.

He remembered constructing lies in order to leave, twenty days before his mission began. Saying to his friends and family that he'd be gone for a year for a training course in college. He remembered feeling anxious and worried for his friends, and distress for his family. For some reason, he couldn't remember his training before that. He couldn't really recall the first few months, exercising, listening, learning about how wolves worked and behaved, and how some of the neighborhood nature worked. He knew it had something to do with his elder, and a former wolf totem, another elder who had been the one to choose him. But he didn't remember the specifics. He just knew, in some streamlined dream sequence, from the time of his choosing and the time of his mission dispatch, he had already began to settle into knowledge that not many people knew.

Pale golden light caressed Jacob's forehead when he woke. Jacob squinted, grumbling. Muscles aching, Jacob stretched his front out of the den, scrabbling out into the open. Song birds were already up, and the forest was alive with the sound of day prey. Jacob shook his pelt and yawned, sitting down on his haunches. Now what?  
He looked at his surroundings. He was in the Washington side of a state park, which overlapped into Canada farther north. He knew that the river from Forks meandered up stream into it, but he hand't come across it yet. He _had_ visited it though, in his early teens on a fishing trip.

Jacob considered the rocks. He could stay here for a few days, he supposed, but he wanted to cover as much ground as possible, before getting stuck down in one spot. Maybe another night or two, in order to get accustomed to being in the wild. Then he could decide where else to go. Jacob hauled himself up onto his paws and was about to explore the rocks further, but a snap cracked behind him. Jacob whirled around, thoroughly annoyed.  
"Who's been following me?" Jacob demanded, "I didn't smell you the entire way, but I know you're there." Jacob scanned the woods. The rocks were sprawled around a gentle, pebbly outcrop, nestled into a loosely knitted patch of trees. As stated, sycamores had grown hugging the back of the rocks, their roots tangling in around them like a nest. Jacob heard paw steps approach, a shadow peering out from the gloom of the woods.

"Hello." A wolf said.


End file.
